After a period of 75-100 years in which we have no recorder prophetic messages, Zephaniah comes on the scene in Jerusalem. Like Amos bringing his message to Israel, Zephaniah comes at a time when things were looking pretty good and he declares a message of destruction upon Judah. Like a janitor coming to make a clean sweep of a big mess, Zephaniah declares the Lord's plans for the southern kingdom.
We also see within the words of Zephaniah that God was concerned with the pride and lack of humility within his people. They had come to believe that they were safe from any kind of cataclysm. But God is clear in his affirmation of the humble and his plans to address the pride of the nation. Though the people may not have understood the virtue of humility, God had plans to put them back in their place in a big way.
And we are once again given a glimmer of hope for a time of salvation that is to come following this pending destruction. Here we see that the people are stubborn in their choices to defy God's wishes. And they will be punished for that, yet God will also save them from complete destruction and restore his people. This should be comforting to us when we are honest with our own stubborn tendencies to do things our own way rather than turning toward God. If God provided salvation to the people of Judah, we have hope that he will do the same for us. We have hope that Zephaniah's janitorial message of a clean sweep is not the final word for us either.
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